Nowadays, liquid crystal display (LCD) panels are widely applied to various electronic products with growth potential, such as monitors, notebook computers, digital cameras and projectors. After manufacturers of LCD panels fabricate glass substrates, a color filter is firstly combined with the glass substrates, then liquid crystals are filled into the sealed glass substrates and color filter, and further combined with various components, including a backlight module, driver ICs, controller PCBs and etc., to commonly construct a LCD module for selling to downstream manufacturers of notebook computers or LCD monitors.
The backlight module is one of key components of LCD panels. Because the liquid crystals can not emit light by itself, the function of the backlight module is to provide evenly distributed light sources with sufficient brightness for normally showing images. The backlight module comprises various components, such as light sources, a lamp shade, a reflector plate, a light guide plate, a diffusion sheet, a brightness enhancement film and an outer frame.
Generally, the backlight module can be divided into two types, i.e. front light type and back light type. Referring now to FIG. 1, a partially exploded perspective view of a traditional liquid crystal module is illustrated, wherein a liquid crystal module 10 substantially comprises a backlight module 11, a liquid crystal panel 12, a front frame 13, a plurality of first screws 14 and a plurality of second screws 15. The backlight module 11 has a plurality of optical films 110 and a housing 111. The housing 111 is a rectangular outer housing, wherein the optical films 110 are received in the housing 111. Furthermore, the housing 111 has at least one side surface formed with a plurality of first screw holes 112, while the housing 111 further has an upper surface formed with a plurality of second screw holes 113. The liquid crystal panel 12 has a driver circuit board 121 on at least one side thereof, wherein the driver circuit board 121 has a plurality of driver ICs and a plurality of openings 122 on suitable positions thereof. The front frame 13 is a rectangular outer frame, and the front frame 13 has an upper surface formed with a plurality of installation holes 131.
In installation, the liquid crystal panel 12 is firstly disposed on the backlight module 11, and the first screws 14 are used to pass through the openings 122 of the driver circuit board 121 for screw-connecting with the first screw holes 112 on the side surface of the housing 111. Then, the front frame 13 is pressed to dispose on the liquid crystal panel 12, and the second screws 15 are used to pass through the installation holes 131 on the upper surface of the front frame 13 for screw-connecting with the second screw holes 113 on the upper surface of the housing 111. Therefore, the first screws 14 and the second screws 15 can construct the backlight module 11, the liquid crystal panel 12 and the front frame 13 into one-piece liquid crystal module 10.
However, in actual installation, there are still some problems existing in the traditional liquid crystal module 10, as follows: with the continuous increase of types and sizes of LCD panels, the sizes and material of the housing 111 of the backlight module 11 are correspondingly increased. But, various housings 111 with different sizes can not be shared, so that new molds must be continuously developed for manufacturing these housings 111. As a result, the used material of the housing 111 is increased, the development cost and time of the housing 111 is raised, and the material management complexity of the housing 111 is also increased.
As a result, it is necessary to provide a backlight module and a housing unit structure thereof to solve the problems existing in the conventional technologies, as described above.